we're. able to. run over a little. syria pledges to retaliate to all his close ally iran warns of diet consequences launches a bombing raid on a target near damascus. unique footage surfaces of cities committed by modern troops and tanks freshly retaken from islam is reports on civilian casualties remain hard to obtain and france plans full military handjob

troops. he exposed america's torture program and got thirteen months for doing so coming up we speak to the decorated cia veteran who turned against the agency. and british prime minister david cameron defies warnings all been eminent threat to u.k. interests and troubles to libya where he has pledged to help train the country's stretched security forces. it's ten pm here in moscow you live with us on our day it's good to have you with us. sarah says it may take action against israel after itself fighter jets reportedly violated syria's servant and bombed a military research complex close to damascus meanwhile diplomats in syria are

friendly iran says that the attacks whole significant implications for israel are his policy here is in tel aviv with more details. now we are hearing from syria that israel did launch a military strike inside that country israel has not commented neither confirming nor denying these reports the syrian ambassador to lebanon did say that it was not clear when ever tell you would happen and that it was up to the powers that be to decide on such decisive action but he did say that it was an option and that it was and would be a surprise now the iranian foreign minister has also stated that this israeli attack has serious implications for the israeli city of tel aviv and those are indeed quite harsh warnings what we understand from syria from syria and sources is that the israelis hit a research center not far from the capital city of damascus and that at least two unsigned workers were killed there are also reports that the strike hit

a convoy of weapons that was making its way from syria to lebanon now washington reportedly was warned by israel obvious intention to strike inside syria this kind of comment coming from a high ranking american official who has spoken on condition that he not be named it is important to mention that a couple of months ago iran's revolutionary guard did say that assad had friends in the region who had not yet entered the fray the quote was that these planes were poised to strike out in case there was an intervention in syria earlier this month israel deployed its i am during defense in the south the system to its border with syria nectars of a growing concern that they could be some kind of use of chemical weapons as i mentioned earlier we have no comment yet from tel aviv there also has been no comment from washington moscow has said if indeed these reports are accurate that

these raids did strike inside the syrian territory it is a gross violation of the united nations charter the arab league for its side has slammed is role for these alleged strikes. saying that they are a flagrant act of aggression and a glaring violation of syria's sovereignty. for more twenty four seven updates on the reported israeli bombing as well as opinions from inside the middle east check out paula as a twitter feed and one of the latest trends are she citing the hebrew press which says a syrian rebel group has actually claimed responsibility for the attack on the military research center near damascus. road to talk more on the air strikes in syria i'm joined a live out by dr abraham illusion political analyst a professor at the. university in amman jordan now professor why are we getting no official comment from israel. well the main thing right now is to remember that this comes on the heels of systematic targeting of

syrian by the syrian free army and the syrian opposition also i'd like to remind you that the syrian opposition has already thought of the radar station on the edges of the golan heights last year so this comes as a continuation of the effort to destroy the syrian army by the opposition and now by the monsters themselves by the israelis so what we are witnessing now is a reflection of the political impasse that the syrian opposition as suffering from being able to achieve anything significant on the ground they have resorted to help from the zionists directly i don't think that the israelis have a policy of making public comments of strikes be it sussan nations or strikes

that they launch outside the boundaries of international law officials in the u.s. say the attack was actually carried out to stop illegal supplies of weapons to hezbollah is it justified a is this the case. well i could barely hear the question but the five got it right you are asking about a convoy of a shipment of arms to hizbullah and fucked we do not know of this is true we know what the syrian government has said. basically a stationary target was was thought to get that by israeli planes and we do not know of these planes actually penetrate the syrian outer space since they could easily have target the that stationary target from lebanese space using longer range missiles that could reach up to dozens of kilometers from

space or from to the ground so. we know for a fact that the israelis are taking advantage of the fact that the syrian army as very busy fighting off and they instigated the revolt inside syria and maybe there's a good chance that the porpoise of this was to. bring in the syrian army to engage the leaves so the left of the pressure of the syrian opposition and allow it to achieve some gains there's a possibility that the purpose of this talk was mainly to have the syrians respond to that is an alias and then have the syrian will they respond and willfully either will syria possible possibly retaliate will syria possibly

retaliate. there is no question that syria would do well with but this does not mean that syria will launch a strike against israeli authorities there are worries that the syrians. that do not involve there are parts. of long there are. the syrians traditionally being. of their own balance of power between them and the israelis as well being supported by a neutral on the united states they will avoid there are gone from patient as much as possible which is a wise thing to do i believe that nicholas speaking you have than the been the is the resistance the palace the numbers as those other types of resistance that are capable of attacking israelis and several places without being certainly linked to the syrians don't know if for him or will for syria dr

abraham louche a political analyst and professor at the university in amman jordan thank you thank you thank you israel must move all of its half a million settlers out of palestine says a fresh un of rights report dubbed biased and counterproductive by the tel of eve the investigation say it's a growing settlement to russia could be seen as a war crime details just ahead. a decorated cia veteran turned a torture whistleblower and the agency outcast is now waiting a summons to start a prison sentence john like who was one of the first to confirm the existence of washington's waterboarding program and has been sent to jail for two and a half years for revealing the name of an undercover agent we're now joined by john a korea cream solve for his view on the punishment mr karaoke thank you very much

for being with us the judge and your critics all seem to believe you got off lightly would you say you got off lightly. no i would not say i got off lightly for a couple of very specific reasons first of all my case was not about leaking my case was about torture when i blew the whistle on torture in december of two thousand and seven the justice to department here in the united states began investigating me and never stopped investigating me until they were able to patch together. charge and force me into taking a plea agreement and i'll add another thing to when i took the plea in october of last year the judge said that she thought the plea was was fair and appropriate but once the courtroom was packed full of reporters last friday she decided that it was not long enough and if she had had the ability to she would have given me ten years did you ever consider that there might be some comeback i mean being

a decorated cia officer you took that stunt that to was the agency's policies i did i took a strong stance and a very public one and that's what got me into trouble but honestly the only thing i would do differently is i would have hired an attorney before blowing the whistle otherwise i believe firmly even to this day i did the right thing. you've called it ironic that the first person to be convicted with regards to the torture program is the man who actually shed light on it do you believe the others who put the program together will ever face justice. i don't actually i think that president obama just like president bush has made a conscious decision to allow the torturers to allow the people who conceived of of the torture and implemented the policy to allow the people who destroyed the evidence of the torture and the attorneys who used specious legal analysis to

approve of the torture to walk free and i think that once that decision has been made that's the end of it and nobody will be prosecuted except me but when you came out initially against torture you said it was impractical and inefficient did you consider it immoral initially i said in two thousand and two that it was immoral when i returned from pakistan to cia headquarters in the summer early in the summer of two thousand and two i was asked by a senior officer in the cia's counterterrorist center if i wanted to be trained in the use of torture techniques and i told him that i had a moral problem with these techniques i believed that they were wrong and i didn't want to have anything to do with the torture program what if torture had been efficient would it would you have found a great to support then no no i grew up in a very pious greek orthodox home and you know we were we were instilled from

a very young age with with a very clear sense of right and wrong and i believed from the beginning that torture was wrong it's no secret that obama's administration has been especially harsh on whistle blow was but can the u.s. afford leniency in these security sensitive times. well see this is i think this is exactly what the problem is in this post nine eleven atmosphere that we find ourselves in we have been losing our civil liberties incrementally over the last decade to the point where we don't even realize how much of a police state the united states has become you know ten years ago the thought of the national security agency spying on american citizens and intercepting their emails would have been anathema to americans and now it's just part of normal business. the idea that that our government would be using drone aircraft to

assassinate american citizens who have never seen the inside of a courtroom who have never been charged with a crime and have not had due process which is their constitutional right would have been unthinkable and it's something now that happens every every so often every few weeks every few months and there is no public outrage i think this is a very dangerous development obama's tough stance then punishment for whistle blow was you know i have sent a message but it is the winning in this fight against whistle blow was. i don't think he is winning this fight against whistleblowers at least not over the long term and i'll tell you why. president obama has charged now seven people with violations of the espionage act all previous presidents in american history combined have charged three people with violating the espionage act and the espionage act is a world war one era act that was meant to deter german saboteurs during that first world war and now it's being used to silence critics of the government but

so far all seven of these cases that have made their way into a courtroom have have either collapsed or have been dismissed including mine all of the of the three espionage charges against me were dropped so i think frankly the obama administration is cheapening the espionage act the espionage act should be used to prosecute spies and traitors not to prosecute whistleblowers or people who are exercising their first amendment right to free speech do we still need whistleblowers are we going to see more of them coming out i think we will see more whistleblowers and i think we need whistleblowers now more than ever before whether it's in national security or whether it's in the banking industry the american people have a right to know when there is evidence of waste fraud abuse or illegality if the justice department isn't going to prosecute those cases at the very least the

american people need to know john kiriakou ex a cia officer and touch a whistleblower speaking to i fail live thank you very much for your time thanks for thanks for having me. and he does session in the u.s. senator obama's pick up for defense secretary goes before lawmakers have a confirmation hearing starts with vocal protests already coming from the israeli lobby that's coming up. at our g. has managed to get exclusive footage of what's believed to be atrocities committed by the mali an army in a town liberated from islamist rebels with the help of french forces any information on civilian casualties in mali has been notably scarce he spoke to local journalists gone zollo one child who told us all the originals of the disturbing tape. ginny moving north we find reports of extrajudicial killings and

evidence of crimes we have heard of the murder of a few citizens by molly and soldiers in the town of silver not only did they kill them they shove their bodies into the drinking water well ok today in the center of the town like in the rest of the population watch rules are hearing of cases where people are being prosecuted for trying to earn a living under the rule of militants all sixteen year old adama says he was unknowingly employed as a cook and butler by jihadists and is now being accused of terrorism. after i started working as a cook in the town of do when i went to surveyor there i met an old man and i asked him for a drink of water he said that he won't share water with terrorists i said that i was in a terrorist and i was just thirsty then i was put into prison i am no terrorist i didn't even know that i was working with militants i only realized that through the rumors i started hearing and then when everyone went on to the frontline i was just cooking food for them no one even talked to me i think persecution is also

reportedly becoming widespread in the area of arabs and said to be persecuted on charges of allegedly collaborating with the militants you know the government and the french troops are fighting against our contacts in timbuktu also told us that shops belonging to arabs are being looted. the french to retake in the final major city of condell from the islamists the say they will soon leave mali handing operations over to government troops loot of unused international consultant and former deputy speaker of the belgian parliament says this is a bad idea considering the low discipline and lack of funding in the west african nation. what i hear now is how this surprises me i mean first of all denali an army does hold a grudge against people who lost them from the northern part of the country and secondly the soldiers of very low grade and that's very little dominance at such as a they're not really a regular army in that sense there's only. hardly

a state apparatus functioning how can you really just have people and examine what they do you can't you just ground in a country like that so the only thing you can do correctly is if you think people might be terrorist is hold them and arrest them and detain them what you certainly will do is say this is kind of extrajudicial executions but it totally surprises me that this is going on right now this country needs support yes this country needs are well why is it that this help only comes in the form of military invasions that's a basic question usually we should ask ourselves and there's also fears of sectarian revenge attacks in mali for name the french and led military campaign one this as well as a midge's from the conflict one country on our team dot com. and later in the program we're telling you about double gary as government war is over energy independence it's doing its best to block a russian finance nuclear power plant after invalidating

a national anthem but back to the constant construction plan that story after shop break. wealthy british style sung. by. market why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike. scrounger the no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into kaiser report on r t i think you.

thank you thank you. thank you. thank you thank you. thank you. thank. you. thank you. this is r.t. throwing his own government's warnings to the winds of british prime minister david cameron has touched down in tripoli full of surprise visit the pm promised to stand by libya as a dream builds even as his own foreign office one breaches of a growing threat to his embassies them let's get more on what he hopes to achieve there with archies andrew fama andrea this is the second visit in seventeen months

to libya what's david cameron been up to today. well he did arrive initially made very tight security and then he stressed that he wanted britain to try and beef up security in libya and try and help it improve its own economy there's no doubting that things have deteriorated in this country since twenty eleven when mr cameron last made his visit here just after the overthrow of colonel gadhafi the new libyan government is struggling with a lack of resources it's also struggling to its authority over militias and on top of this recently the british government admitted that there was a threat to its own embassy in tripoli and that it had advised british nationals to leave benghazi because of security concerns so mr cameron is well aware that there are problems and no doubt he will be talking about these when he meets with the libyan prime minister and the president during the rest of his visit but there was one telling moment today because apart from all this he did make a fifteen minute walk about around martyrs square which was the center of the

revolution he did meet with revolutionaries and he also met with people with local would see were trying to shake his hand but among school is the rule so cries from people of. god is great and that really does perhaps indicate the fact that there are still divisions in libyan society and that while some people do support the new libyan government there are those that don't we understand that he also traveled from algeria to libya can you tell us a little bit more about that. so we understand he traveled from algeria couldn't quite hear well yes he did as well from margaret literally coming from algeria in his visit to algeria was of a similar purpose really he was trying to show that britain has support for this country and he also made reference to algeria today and also talked about the terrorist attack at the gas plant there which saw which saw thirty seven foreigners killed you mention that that was a reminder that what happens in other countries affects us at home too so i suppose

putting it simply he's trying to show that britain still cares about these two countries mr cameron does have his critics though there are those that claim that really what he's trying to do is protect britain's own interests after all libya are among the top five producing all countries in africa and reform our correspondents giving us an update there on david cameron's a visit to libya. while they were cameron splashes out a broader it's a different story at home british taxpayers quite follow made revelations of baghdad judy hikes with a complicating what some say is an already bloated tax system feeding the u.k. for coffers that's coming up shortly. the u.s. senate has started a confirmation hearing of one of president obama's most controversial choices for a key job in his team chuck hagel nominated to be the new defense secretary has

been under fire for his stance towards iran and is accused of being anti israel argy is gay and she can explains why certain political groups are so against his candidacy. chuck hagel has been under attack since his name was floated as president obama's pick for the defense secretary position it would see attack ads on all major u.s. t.v. channels saying what a terrible defense secretary chuck hagel would be all who are december and much of january they've been running these ads you know between commercials of beauty products or prescription drugs and what so somewhere between those you could catch attack ads like this one secretary of defense chuck hagel president obama says he supports sanctions on iran he voted against the legal voted against labeling iran's revolutionary guard a terrorist group and while president obama says all options are on the table for preventing a nuclear iran cagle says military action is not a viable feasible responsible option president obama or secretary of defense chuck

hagel is not responsible option. that ad was sponsored by the emergency committee for israel so what that truck a will do to deserve that as a u.s. senator chuck hagel has been critical of israel's policies he's been critical of the israeli lobby in washington here's what he said the political reality is that the jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here i've always argued against some of the dumb things they do because i don't think it's in the interest of israel i just don't think it's smart for israel and of quote among other things chuck hagel dared to say that u.s. interests should trump israeli interests if they conflict he supported direct negotiations with iran and unlike many other politicians here in washington who keep repeating the all options on the table mantra but these publicly they say that the chuck hagel has been straightforward in saying a strike on iran should not be an option and he has also been a proponent of

a more even handed u.s. policy with regards to these really palestinian conflict and the u.s. has been anything but even handed on the issue it's also for statements like this one that he has been under attack take a look this is chuck hagel in two thousand and six the united states will remain committed to defending israel our relationship with israel is a special and historic one. but it need not and cannot be at the expense of our arab and muslim relationships. that is an irresponsible and dangerous false choice some saw president obama's decision to nominate chuck hagel as his message to these really hard liners we actually heard president obama say there is too much war talk going on and maybe nominating talk hagel is his way of bringing down the tension and not not everybody here in washington likes that message but what's interesting since the beginning of the attack campaign against chuck hagel over these two months or so many of the attackers have sort of

withdrawn their objections over chuck hagel nomination some say could be because they received assurances behind closed doors that as defense secretary chuck hagel is not going to make any drastic moves to really challenge washington's foreign policy with the doxies. but some analysis of the other story i'm now joined by the founder of the wide awake a news dot com website charlie immigrant. mr mclaughlin hagen hagel has been against the idea of striking iran over its alleged nuclear program but before the hearing he said that he might result to military action if needed is a giving up his believes you get more support. definitely i definitely believe that i mean he's got some very stiff opposition they do not want to see him become the secretary of defense namely mccain and senator graham you know the the war hawks do not like his position that he is taking in there isn't always the answer so i think

absolutely he's changing his position he's shifting towards the middle or towards the right in order to get in and get the nomination haydel has been repeatedly called pacifist do you think u.s. foreign policies will shift was being less aggressive. you know what i'd be naive if i believe that you know it when when president obama was elected in two thousand and eight we you know the same kind of hope to mizzen was there with shutting down get moment ending these wars and fighting the right kind of wars but then we find out when you know after the deal is done after the elections are over the nomination process is over we continue with our war footing around the world so you know i would love to see it i would love to see a change in our so-called defense posture but unfortunately history has proven that you know what the goal isn't going to change a war footing in this nation i mean he's also been criticized for being too thought .